Welcome to the Stem Cell Therapy Group Vienna
You are here possibly asking yourself if stem cell therapy can help you with your disease. And you find it far from easy to get competent advice. Commentaries vary from "it works for everything" to "it does not work at all". Possibly you are left alone between the promises you find in the Internet and the cautious remarks of your personal physician.
At the Stem Cell Therapy Group Vienna our team of academic physicians will guide you through the jungle of regenerative medicine based on today's medical research and literature as well as bringing in our own experiences and that of our network of many more specialists around the globe.
Stem Cells in General
Stem cells are cells needed for building a living creature. Life began with an ovum and a sperm cell. A conceived cell is formed. By multiplication this cell is able to build a complete human being. Out of these rudimentary cells rises a blastocyst, which contains the embryonic stem cells. They are still very unspecialized and have the ability to divide endlessly and to develop into all of the 220 human cell types.These embryonic cells are described as totipotent (meaning "potent for everything") and are able to differentiate in every type of cell. The embryonic stem cell is the most powerful stem cell of all the stem cells. The Embryonic Stem Cells will change in a specific type of cell and by doing this loose their all-rounders abilities. Mature, differentiated cells are formed taking over a specific function in our body, for example neurocytes which conduct electric impulses, muscle cells which contract and the ß-cells of the pancreas which produce insulin.
Limits of Autologous Regeneration
To start the repair, Stem Cells are able to move actively towards a lesion or an injury in the body (this is called homing)6, 7. Often stem cells cannot pass an occluded blood vessel or the lesion is so big that the number of available cells is too low to make a difference. This is often the case by an accident, a stroke or a severe neurodegenerative disease. Another problem forms the fact that stem cells age and lose their regenerative potency. The Stem cells of children are more powerful than the stem cells of a 75 years old person. Finally, if a person has a genetic disorder, the stem cells have the same genetic food print and also all the cells derived from these stem cells.
Embryonic Stem Cells
Embryonic Stem Cells are the most powerful stem cells, which can differentiate into every kind of cell type needed to build a human and are harvested out of living embryos. Second, embryonic stem cells can be transplanted to everyone without rejection. There is scientific interest in using embryonic cells to treat certain genetic disorders. Third, because of the fact that embryonic stem cells can form every type of cell, there is also a high risk that these cells can differentiate in a tumor cell2.
Nowadays from an ethical perspective, there is a lot of debate ongoing concerning the use of embryonic stem cells. The embryonic stem cells are harvested out of living embryos and this bears the risk of selling embryos to cell banks.
In our treatments and therapies we only utilize adult stem cells!
References
2. Lee AS, Tang C, Cao F, Xie X, van der Bogt K, Hwang A, et al. Effects of cell number on teratoma
formation by human embryonic stem cells. Cell Cycle. 2009; 8(16): 2608-12.
Stem cells from cord blood
Nowadays, a lot of parents decide to store the cord blood of their newborns in special cell banks. This blood is deeply frozen and can be used to deliver stem cells for the child, for one of the parents, or even for brother or sister of the newborn in the future3. The advantages of cord blood stem cells are a high potency to differentiate in all kind of tissue cells (pluripotent), a high chance not having the genetic failures responsible for certain diseases and the fact that these cells are well tolerated because they have the best possible genetic match if someone doesn't want to use autologous stem cells. Finally, the risk to initiate tumors is less than the risk mentioned for embryonic stem cells.
Allogenic Adult Stem Cells
The use of adult stem cells is by no means completely new. Stem cells have been used for the therapy of blood cancer (leukemia) for more than 40 years now. Normally this is done by allogenic (heterogenic) bone marrow transplantation, i.e. bone marrow taken from a suitable donor. This exchange from bone marrow is not without risk.The complete bone marrow of the patients is eradicated by chemotherapy and completely replaced by the bone marrow of a donor to be sure that every leukemia cell is killed.
The use of Autologous Adult Stem Cells
The treatment with stem cells is not new8. More than 40 years now stem cells are used to treat certain forms of cancer especially leukemia. The use of autologous (stem cells of your own) adult stem cells is ethical and legally accepted. In Europe, extracted stem cells are seen as advanced medicinal products and companies processing stem cells for treatment have to fulfill all kind of special regulatory requirements like obtaining a manufacturing license from the National or European Regulatory Agencies9.
Mechanism of Autologous Stem Cells
The way stem cells act in the healing process is still unclear. For a long time, it was assumed that stem cells simply replace the damaged cells by new ones10. This may be the case to some extent, but recent research has found indices for the fact that stem cells more often promote healing by influencing the environment in the affected parts of the body. This is done by secreting all kind of substances (trophic factors, growth factors, inflammation inhibiters etc)11-14 which prevent further damage/dying of cells15-17 and which stimulate local stem cells to differentiate to replace the damaged cells.
Indications for Stem Cell Treatment
The spectrum of applications for the use of autologous adult stem cells is wide and includes the use of adult stem cells for rebuilding cartilage in joints, to replace skin and/or bone tissue (keyword: Tissue Engineering) and even regenerate neural and muscle tissue or establish blood supply again. Important to know is the fact that a lot of research is ongoing investigating the potency of stem cells to improve or cure chronic medical conditions.
Limits Of Stem Cell Therapy
Worldwide a lot of patients are treated with autologous stem cells. But despite the encouraging medical results, there are still patients who do not experience improvements as expected. Questions like 'Why did the therapy failed in this particular case' or 'Is it possible to estimate parameters to predict success or failure prior to stem cell treatment for the individual patient' are very relevant and need further research.
Stem Cell Quality
The quality of Stem Cells is of great importance for treatment20. Aging itself influences the quality of the stem cells and this is important in strategies to treat diseases, which occur particularly at older ages. For example, children have a higher number of stem cells per ml bone marrow than a person of 75 years old. Furthermore, the potency of the stem cell to differentiate (plasticity) seems also to be higher in children compared to the stem cell of an old age person.
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Stem Cell Therapy Group Vienna
Univ. Doz. Dr. med. Georg S. Kobinia
(Private Surgery)
Scheibenbergstraße 41, 1180 Vienna
Austria
Phone: +43 (0)1 320 21 46
Mobile: +43 (0)660 555 44 33